Early morning, as usual, Zhen Niang rose early to run several laps in the back courtyard and stretch her limbs. Then, like inspecting her territory, she made rounds through both the ink workshop and front shop, greeting the early-rising workers before returning to the small building in the back courtyard to have breakfast with her Second Aunt.

Breakfast consisted of preserved egg and lean meat porridge, along with spring rolls and several side dishes. Dao Po’s spring rolls were excellent—the outer skin fried to a delicate golden yellow, thin and crispy. Biting into them revealed a fragrant, crispy interior with scalding hot vegetable filling that released savory juices. Zhen Niang could finish one in just two bites.

Madam Huang genuinely praised Dao Po several times.

When Li Jingming’s household first arrived in Nanjing, they had three servants: the cook Dao Po, Wu Tou who served Madam Ge, and the odd-job worker Duan Qi. Wu Tou had been part of Ge Qiu’s dowry, and when Ge Qiu divorced Li Zhengping, Wu Tou naturally returned to the Ge family with her. As for Duan Qi, he was only hired temporarily; after three to five days, when his term ended, he collected his wages and went to find other work.

Only Dao Po remained, kept on by Madam Huang for her excellent culinary skills. Now she managed the household affairs alongside Madam Ma, with Dao Po running the kitchen while Madam Ma served as the general housekeeper, handling everything else.

Receiving Madam Huang’s praise, Dao Po smiled and withdrew.

“Zhen Niang, we received a letter from home. Your eldest brother should arrive in the next few days,” Madam Huang said.

“Yes, I thought he should be coming around now,” Zhen Niang nodded. When the Seventh Grandmother visited last time, she had mentioned that her eldest brother would come, but at that time, his wife was in early pregnant. Perhaps due to the previous tung oil incident, his wife’s pregnancy wasn’t very stable, with occasional health issues. Her brother, being worried, had stayed home longer. Now that his wife’s condition had stabilized, he planned to come to Nanjing. The tung oil prices had been falling month after month, and her brother was probably anxious about it.

Actually, the previous tung oil prices had been artificially high, mainly due to the pine plague. This price decrease was merely a return to normal levels.

Zhen Niang estimated that the tung oil price drop had largely bottomed out, and once the Longqing Emperor opened trade restrictions, prices would soar again. However, only Zhen Niang knew this. She had considered suggesting that her eldest brother simply stockpile oil and wait.

However, although her brother had worked in an oil workshop before, he had been merely a worker with no understanding of the tung oil business channels. Now that the oil workshop was operating, they needed to do business and maintain cash flow. Due to the previous tung oil incident, the Li family’s eighth branch owed the ink workshop considerable money. If this batch of tung oil wasn’t sold, it would affect both workers’ wages and future production.

Moreover, business needed to be done on a larger scale. Simply waiting for oil merchants to come purchase at home would result in severely depressed prices, which wouldn’t be worthwhile. Therefore, they needed to first establish themselves in the tung oil market.

Thus, her eldest brother’s trip to Nanjing was inevitable.

Zhen Niang and Madam Huang chatted about the tung oil business for a while longer.

After breakfast, Madam Huang went to the backyard workshop to guide several apprentices in carving boards.

Zhen Niang went to the ink shop. After making a round inside, she stepped out the front door to see Madam Yao standing at her doorway, gazing toward the official street.

“Aunt Yao, what are you looking at?” Zhen Niang asked curiously, following her line of sight toward the Yihou Sheng Money House, where Luo Jiu was dressed in short clothes, with two money house guards carrying bundles, appearing ready to set out.

Luo Jiu noticed Zhen Niang looking over and waved.

Zhen Niang smiled with narrowed eyes, watching them board the carriage which then drove toward the official street entrance. Two mounted guards followed the carriage, protecting the bundles of silver carried by the money house guards.

This scene could be witnessed every morning, much like armored cars from later times. In the morning, branch banks would send operating funds to various savings offices, and in the afternoon when the business closed, the armored cars would collect the day’s earnings back to the branch.

The money houses of this era operated similarly, and they had to form alliances, as individual money houses couldn’t compare to later banks in an operational capacity. Thus, local alliances were formed. For instance, several Huizhou money houses would often coordinate with each other. This was why Luo Jiu, as a newcomer wanting to open a money house, had been ostracized—being young and inexperienced, others naturally felt he wasn’t qualified to cooperate with them.

Speaking of money houses, the real powerhouses were the Shanxi merchants. In the current Nanjing (Yingtian), the Shanxi merchants’ draft banks still held an edge over the Huizhou merchants’ money houses.

The competition here was certainly no less intense than in the ink business.

Hearing Zhen Niang’s question, Aunt Yao pointed to a shop next to the Yihou Sheng Money House: “Look, that shop is opening today.”

Upon hearing this, Zhen Niang realized that Aunt Yao wasn’t watching the money house’s silver transport, but rather the neighboring shop. Zhen Niang knew this shop—it had a storefront with a large warehouse behind it.

When they first arrived, since all their storefronts were rented out with no vacancies, Zhen Niang had considered renting that shop for their ink business. However, later two tenants gave up their leases, so Zhen Niang no longer needed to rent additional space.

Until now, that shop hadn’t been rented out, mainly because the owner’s asking price was too high. It seemed someone had finally rented it, but who had taken it, and what business would they run?

“Madam Yao, do you know what kind of business it will be?” Zhen Niang asked curiously.

“Zhen Niang, you don’t know?” Madam Yao looked surprised, as if Zhen Niang’s ignorance was incredible.

“Know what? I don’t know,” Zhen Niang replied.

“It’s a raw silk shop opened by Ge Qiu from the Ge family! Somehow the Ge family connected with Wei the God of Wealth and got some raw silk business from him. I heard the Ge family made a fortune in the past two seasons,” Aunt Yao said enviously.

Zhen Niang finally understood. So the Ge family rented the shop. With Ge Dana’s involvement, even a high rent wouldn’t be too burdensome.

The relationship between the Ge family and Wei the God of Wealth had some connection to Zhen Niang. It started from the day the Li Family Ink Shop opened. When Huang Lang came to cause trouble for the Li family, Wang Cuiqiao happened to bring Wei the God of Wealth to offer congratulations. Although General Qi was also present that day, someone of his status wouldn’t bother with a small figure like Huang Lang. Thus, while Huang Lang was terrified at the time, he wasn’t too worried about General Qi afterward, but rather about Wei the God of Wealth.

Wei the God of Wealth had started similarly to Ge Dana, rising from a gang of idlers to become a merchant influential in both legitimate and underground circles in Nanjing. He valued face above all, and Huang Lang’s behavior that day had caused him to lose face. Therefore, Huang Lang had been worried that Wei’s people would come after him, so he went to discuss the matter with his boss, Ge Dana.

Ge Dana thought that avoiding the issue wouldn’t help, so he decided to take a page from Lian Po’s book and have Huang Lang apologize formally.

He took Huang Lang to Wei’s mansion to apologize.

While Wei the God of Wealth could ignore Huang Lang, he couldn’t completely dismiss Ge Dana, who had connections at the tax bureau and an excellent relationship with Eunuch Ma from the tax office. It was said that privately, Ge Dana had become Eunuch Ma’s adopted son.

Thus, Wei the God of Wealth pardoned Huang Lang for Ge Dana’s sake, and Ge Dana took this opportunity to establish a relationship with Wei, which led to this raw silk business.

Originally, according to Ge Dana’s thinking, since Qiu’er had maintained some dignity in her divorce, she should stay at home properly and wait for a good match. With her dowry, she could have another grand wedding and regain face.

However, his idea of gaining face differed completely from Ge Qiu’s. Firstly, Ge Qiu had been influenced by Zhen Niang, believing that women could also handle business affairs. Secondly, she wanted to prove herself successful to make Li Zhengping regret his actions.

Therefore, Ge Qiu decided to use her dowry as capital to start a business.

Ge Dana had always doted on his daughter, naturally letting her do whatever she wanted, so he handed over the raw silk business he’d gotten from Wei to Ge Qiu to manage.

Because of this, Madam Cao hadn’t spoken to him for several days at home.

While Zhen Niang was talking with Aunt Yao, the Ge family’s silk shop had hung up lanterns and pasted couplets. Strings of firecrackers began exploding with rapid-fire sounds, followed by fireworks, and lion dancers performed at the entrance for quite a while. The opening ceremony was quite grand, drawing all the idlers from the entire street to watch the excitement.

The lion dancers were Huang Lang’s gang of brothers.

“Haha, Huang Lang is putting in maximum effort today,” someone watched happily and laughed.

“How could he not? Perhaps he has a share in the shop’s profits,” another person suggested suggestively.

“What? Does Huang Lang have a stake in the shop? Wasn’t it supposed to be Ge Qiu’s? Don’t tell me Huang Lang has set his sights on Ge Qiu. Has he lost his mind?” A nearby aunt’s eyes sparkled with gossip.

“Huang Lang doesn’t have any stake! Even if he wanted to pursue Ge Qiu, she’d have to be interested in him first. Ge Qiu shows him no favor—as if she’d be interested in him! However, Huang Lang is quite bold. I heard he’s carrying on with Ge Dana’s second wife, Madam Cao. There’s something unclear going on between them,” a matchmaker said ambiguously.

“Matchmaker, is this true or false? Don’t spread rumors carelessly. Forget Ge Dana, even Huang Lang could deal with you,” nearby people said skeptically.

“Hehe, there’s no smoke without fire,” the matchmaker chuckled, then waved her hand. “No more talk, no more talk. You didn’t hear anything from me today, and even if anyone asks later, I’ll deny saying anything.”

The matchmaker spoke these words as she walked away with measured steps.

If she hadn’t added that last sentence, it might have been fine, but that final statement only aroused everyone’s curiosity even more. People began whispering to each other, and somehow, they seemed to find some truth in it.

The Ge family’s opening remained lively, but the spectators’ expressions had taken on a strange quality. The Ge family’s situation was becoming more interesting. Ge Dana treated Huang Lang like a brother, not knowing his reputation was being tarnished.

Zhen Niang heard all this from the side but did not comment.

“Miss Zhen, terrible news! The Tian family has also produced liquid ink and invited traveling merchants from various places for an ink ordering fair. Their ink price is only sixty percent of ours. I just got a bottle of their ink—it’s the same as ours. That damned Master Zeng must have stolen our formula and given it to the Tian family. No wonder Master Zeng is now hiding and doesn’t dare show his face.” Just then, Zheng Fuli came hurrying over from the other direction, holding a bottle of ink, his face ashen with anger.

“The Tian family has never played by the rules. This time we must demand justice from them.”